What Do We Do Now?
by oncethrown
Summary: After defeating the First Evil, the scoobies and company bunk down for the night. They celebrate thier victories, mourn their losses, and try to figure out what to do now. Xanders POV, no comics spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

What do we do now?

Well, with the Sunnydale mall not so much closed for business as blown to hell what we do now is find a swanky hotel on the outskirts of LA, put the bill on Kennedy's credit card, send Dawn to bed, and hit the bar. Giles gets a double scotch, Kennedy talks Willow into Margaritas, Faith and Wood check into their room, say they'll meet us down there and never show up, and Buffy gets something fruity and icy and multi-colored that looks delicious (so does Andrew) but I decide to be a man and get a whiskey and coke, even though I really want to get a strawberry schnapps and cream and think of Anya. For some reason it doesn't seem like the right way to do it.

The first round is drunk in stunned silence, the second we toast to the victorious dead and at the third Andrew passes out face down on the bar, Giles calls it a night and the dance floor starts calling to the rest of us.

"Will, you wanna dance?" I ask, noticing the slur in my voice and figuring she doesn't hear it. Not only because she's even more of a lightweight than I am, but because she didn't even hear me asking her. There's a newly-minted Slayer with a tongue stud on the other side of her whispering in her ear and all I see is the back of my best friend as she actually _scurries_ upstairs behind Xena.

"I'll cut in, Xander."

Buffy takes my hand and gently pulls me out to the dance floor for the second half of a slow song. It's weird to feel her pulling my arm around her waist and wrapping her hands around the back of my neck, but hey, nothing in my life isn't weird anymore. The woman I left at the altar is dead, my hometown became a crater in the battle against hell, and the woman I'm dancing with isn't the chosen one anymore. The song changes to some blast from the past 90's slow song and for one whole second I feel like I'm back in High school and back at the Bronze. Buffy must feel the same because she pulls herself against me, presses her face into my chest and I just wrap my arms tighter around her. Halfway through the song we aren't even revolving anymore, I'm just holding her close to me on the dance floor.

I tilt my head down, pressing my face into her gold hair, "We should turn in, Buff". She doesn't say anything, but she makes a small noise of agreement and slides her hands off my neck and down my chest before she turns to look back at the bar, where Andrew is sprawled over the bar like a toddler crashed out on the playroom floor after a serious sugar rush.

"We should take him up to his room," Buffy sighs.

Buffy takes Andrew by the shoulders, I take his feet and we carry him to the elevator. She almost drops him while digging his key out of his pocket, but we get him into bed just fine and he starts murmuring something about Tom Cruise, so we figure he'll be okay if we leave him alone. I set a glass of water on the nightstand and put the bathroom garbage next to his bed for him just in case.

"I'll put 20 bucks on disastrous natural gas bubble." I say to Buffy as we pass my door. We both know I'm going to walk her to her and Dawn's room.

"What?" She asks.

"The cover story on the national news explaining why Sunnydale's property values finally dropped so low they hit the negatives? I'm going to bet on natural gas."

"I'd lean toward something involving more fault lines and tectonic plates myself. But I don't have 20 bucks. Silly me I went off to battle the legions of hell without my wallet and now that's all just so much crater dust," Buffy says mirthlessly. She makes it two more steps before she starts to cry and part of me is almost relieved to see that she has enough emotion left in her to do it. I pull her against me and my relief picks up a tinge of terror when I realize that Buffy's whole body is shaking, like a kitten in a blizzard. I have one hand holding her tight against me and the other running carefully over her hair as I feel her tears sink through my shirt. And it's just too much. I start to cry too. But I feel like Buffy crying this way is just too private a thing to just be happening out in the hallway.

In my room I pour us both glasses of water, but by the time I've unwrapped the glasses, filled them and brought them out to where Buffy is perched on the side of my bed, just above where the comforter has been drawn back, we've both caught our breath and are back to crying full force. When she buries her face in my chest this time I know what will happen next. I'm not physic guy, but I'm surprised when she lifts her face up and gently kisses my neck. Then my cheek. Then finally my lips.

I kiss her back, I let her push me gently back onto the pillow, but then I stop. I taste tears. I don't know if they're hers or mine, and that's why I can't do it like this. Buffy doesn't say anything, she doesn't leave. She just sinks her head back down to my chest and lies there. I leave one arm on her back holding her. I've loved her since I met her, I've loved her for 7 years. She has finally kissed me, but I can't. I can't.

Anya and I were over, even though our "one last time sex" was "second to last time sex." But my precious girl had died today saving the world today. The most human thing she had ever done.

Buffy's still shaking, and I can't let her do this to me. I want so badly to let her find solace in me, but I can't. I can't let her because I can't let her keep kissing me when she's lost her home, her life, her everything. She's not THE Slayer anymore, and I can't take advantage of that. But I can't pretend to myself that I'm all chivalry either. I won't be the way she consoles herself for the loss of Spike. I won't distract her from the fact that she's close enough to find Angel, but knows she can't.

"I have to go check on Dawn," she whispers finally as she slowly lifts her body off of mine. I sit up as she walks toward the door. She turns back to me, "I'm sorry, Xander, I shouldn't have… Anya and… I'm sorry."

"It's fine. We all need… don't worry about it."

She takes a couple more steps toward the door. This time she half turns the handle before turning back again.

"Xander," She brushes a tear off her face, and looks shamefacedly at the wall rather than me "Can I just sleep here?"

There is only so much comfort I can deny that face. She goes to check on Dawn and I begin to undress. Then I realize that I no longer own pajamas, and I'm going to be in my burnt and bloodstained clothes for a while yet, which includes tonight. I pick a side of the bed and burrow under the covers. I hear the door open, the lights switch off. I feel her press against me again. And I let myself think about kissing her again, let myself believe that when I was kissing her, she was really kissing me back.

But then, in a tiny, quiet, half asleep voice she says "You are so warm."

And I resign myself to comforting her. We all need it.


	2. Chapter 2

In that very small, timeless space between sleeping and waking I am almost aware of my finger tips softly brushing up and down over her jeans, across the soft skin of her bare stomach and just far enough under her shirt that the hem of it tickles my knuckles before my fingers glide back down to her waistband. I can feel her hip bone against my palm, her hair against my face, and the heavy warmth from her body sinking through my skin and into the center of me. I can't feel my other arm. I hear, or maybe dream, her sigh sleepily as she rolls over, her face against my chest. She presses her whole body against mine and slides up me, bringing her face level with mine.

"Buffy-" I mumble, before she kisses me.

It's a kiss like silk, smooth and fragile and so light it's hard to tell if it's really there and I return it in feathers and down, soft and succumbing, tongues meeting briefly. Noses tip together and one of her hands velvets along my face and knots it's fingers in my nape, while my hand burns under her shirt, over her tight stomach breathing a whimper when she supplely yields into my palm and digs her fingers deeper into my hair, kneading into my scalp. She's singing my name in only breezes and gusts "Xander… Xander… Xander…" and I crash on top of her like high-tide on the shore, every inch of her skin blazing against mine, scalding, burning, volcanic against-

"Xander!"

With a start it's now disconcertingly bright and my left arm is uselessly numb at my side. Buffy is sprawled over my side, suddenly aware that she has been sleepily been mushing her lips against the corner of my mouth. My hand is squeezing her breast like a boy scout learning to milk a cow. We pull away from each other, _mortified_, as Giles calls again.

"Xander!"

"Yeah?" I yell back, all of a sudden painfully aware of the disgusting post-long-drunken-night-tongue-rot taste in my mouth "What?"

"Could you let me in?"

"Uh…" My eyes fly wide.

"Shower!" Buffy hisses. I grab a pillow for modesty and concentrate on geometry as I dart to the door "I just got out of the shower, what do you need?"

"Oh, wonderful, you're awake," Giles' muffled voice comes through the door, "We're going to meet over breakfast and try to decide upon a course of action."

"Great, I'll just get dressed and put my face on and be right down."

"Good."

I turn back to the room to see Buffy wearing one sock and frantically looking for the other.

"What's the rush?" Way to go Xander, she's actually running out of your room before you squeeze her inappropriately and reek dead-animal breath all over her again.

"When I went back to my room I left Dawn a note that said I had woken up early and gone down to breakfast and out for a walk, aha!" she triumphantly pulls on her other sock. I glance at the night table.

"We save the world and go out drinking and Giles pulls us out of bed at 8:30 am the next day?"

"Well, he's still the Watcher," She says and I hear the tone. What the hell are we now?

"What do you think Willow's going to do now? I mean, with the whole putting the uber-witch white magick wham bam thank you ma'am on who knows how many girls?" That could have been better phrased, I think as strange images pop up in my mind and are instantly repressed. But Buffy's not listening to me, she's cramming her shoes on so she can run out before anyone finds out she was here. With me.

"I don't know." She heads for the door and I grab her hand to stop her.

"Hey."

She stops and looks into my eyes, and for the first time –ever- I see real fear there. She squeezes my hand, and stands on her tiptoes to give me a quick peck on the cheek before cracking the door open. She checks to see if the coast is clear and speeds down the hallway.

"Nice, Xander," I congratulate myself, "You now hold the land speed record for demotion from second base to pity cheek kiss. I bet Spike and Angel never got pity cheek kisses."

I head down to breakfast after a quick shower, which doesn't seem nearly as refreshing after I've put my clothes back on and realize how bad they actually smell. I also have a weird red line along my cheek from falling asleep with my eye-patch on.

I am feeling un-sexy in the extreme as I make my way down to the hotel's fancy restaurant. Buffy and Giles are sitting in the corner where they have pushed together a couple of spindly glass top tables. Buffy is spreading peanut butter onto toast while Giles agitatedly pours teen half and halfs into a white mug on a saucer. They aren't talking.

I join Dawn in the Omelet line where she is methodically scooping piles of everything onto her plate. The presence of Dawn makes me feel guilty about who I woke up with.

"Mornin' Dawnster"

"Hey Xander." She responds, sparing me a small smile before concentrating on the transfer of a pile of olives from the omelet bar to her plate.

Out of the corner of my eye I watch Willow breeze through the glass doors, Kennedy trailing behind her, fingers twined, giggling like junior high girls.

"How you holding up, kiddo?" I ask Dawn. She shrugs, threatening to shower the floor in ham cubes and green pepper slices.

"I don't know, been better, I guess," Dawn replies, "How about you?"

"Been better," I agree.

She casts a glance toward Willow and Kennedy taking advantage of the waffle bar. "God, does Willow have to bring her everywhere?"

"Willow's always fallen hard and fast. I guess she's grown past the moving slow phase. It took her and Oz way longer than this to be all coupley."

"Yeah. And Kennedy's figured out how to use that to get right into the inner circle," Dawn sneered as Willow and Kennedy sat down across from Buffy and Giles, "Bitch."

"Dawnie!" I am overdoing the pet names out of guilt. Maybe she won't notice. She gives me a thoroughly unapologetic look.

"Well, really. All the other Potentials, well, Slayers now I guess, get told what to do. Swing this, slay that- and Kennedy latched right on to someone who lets her be part of making the plan and giving the orders," Dawn says in the same angry tone.

I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that this is Dawn's reaction. It wasn't that long ago that Dawn spent the summer with two mommies. Well, two mommies and her sister's bizarre incarnation as a vampire's former sex bot. Dawn was the one who had spent hours with Tara's body. You don't forgive the new stepmom easily after something like that. And frankly I don't like Kennedy either. She reminds of someone but I can't put my finger on who.

The poor guy working behind the omelet station makes Dawn's ingredients into three omelets and eventually the two of us make our way to the corner tables, where Giles is pouring himself another cup of coffee.

"Giles, breaking out the beverage of ex-patriots. Should we worry?"

He scowls at me. I grab the pot of coffee, and pour myself a cup, trying not to try not to look at Buffy as she continues the conversation that I interrupted.

"Do we have any contact with anyone from the Watcher's Council?" Buffy asks Giles as I pour sugar into my coffee, "They must have… I don't know, special ops, Watchers that avoided the First's purge, retirees?"

"Those people exist, yes," Giles answered, "But with the Council itself in smithereens we must tread very carefully. There is little any of those people can do without the Council's resources available to them-"

"Bunch of Weselys huh?" Willow sighed.

"What?" Kennedy inquired.

"Tell you later sweety."

Dawn pursed her lips very firmly at the "sweety".

"A, ahem, "bunch of Wesley's" is not the only problem with contacting the council. We've changed… everything. The world. The council has never responded well to challenge and if we simply call them out of the blue for help, as though we needed them… they may get, well-"

"Extra-special shirty?" Buffy suggested.

"Terribly, violently reactionary," Giles finished.

"Like how?" I asked.

"New Slayers go boom, world simple again, council men happy," Buffy sneered.

"Essentially," Giles agreed.

"Well, I suggest we paint the bus, put in shag carpeting, teach the new slayers to play instruments and become a rock sensation by day and an evil fighting force by night," I say, managing a smile out both Buffy and Giles.

"Dibs on the tambourine," Willow grins. Kennedy wraps an arm around her and I wonder if just maybe Dawn had a point, there was something… hanger-ony about Kennedy.

"Look," Willow continued, "We need to figure something out, and we need to figure it out soon, but maybe we don't need to do it right now. Right now we need some basics. We all need new clothes, and we need to figure out lunch and dinner for 60 some slayers."

"Hey," Buffy sat up suddenly, "Where is Faith?"

"Well, I won't repeat what she told me, or where she told me to stick it, but Faith is not a morning person," Giles said.

"And Wood?" Buffy continued.

"I didn't stick around to ask," Giles sighed.

"Well, I can take care of everyone's lunch and dinner," Kennedy volunteered.

"Does your father like, own all the sweatshops in a third world country or something?" Dawn asked.

"Umm…" Kennedy started, "It's more like a Haliburton type deal."

"Kay, well, two problems solved," Buffy said.

I realize who Kennedy reminds me of and just manage not to say it out loud when I realize how much killing I would get from Willow. Kennedy is, in a couple generic ways, a lot like Cordelia.

"We can pool credit cards for clothes," Willow said, "And then, not right now, we should start thinking about sending girls home."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, "There are just way, way too many of us. And we just because we beat big bad doesn't mean we're totally out of the woods. It's probably not a good idea to have this many slayers all holed up together. We don't know what else is changing in the world. And we need to find out. How do we find out?"

"Let's add that to the "to be solved later" pile and concentrate on new clothes. And possibly a Laundromat," Willow said soothingly.

"Someone go spread the word to the Pote-" Buffy shook her head, she looked tired already, "Slayers, that we are going shopping today…"

I fall into my own thoughts as Buffy, Willow and Giles work out the details.

I should feel more like I've betrayed Anya. Maybe leaving a girl at the altar will completely max you on betrayal though, because all I'm feeling is a low-level betrayal. Really low level, like how you'd feel if you eaten the last of someone's ice cream sort of betrayal. Nowhere near the level the betrayer should feel for kissing and groping another woman hours after the death of the betrayee. I'm scum.

Everyone gets up from the table and heads off to knock doors and wake Slayers. A few appear to be early risers. Dawn is sent around the tables to tell whichever young slayers have come for free breakfast about the plan. She sits down with a group of them to finish the last of her omelets. Willow and Kennedy head back up their hallway with Giles far enough behind them to be out of earshot. Which leaves me walking up my hallway with Buffy.

We are walking together, but neither of us is talking to the other. Buffy is completely in her own headspace and I… can't think of anything to say. We get to the elevator. I hit the button. We get in the elevator.

Oh god. Someone must speak. It doesn't have to be witty, it just has to be words. The elevator begins to grind its way up.

"Sorry about this morning," pops out of me. No I'm not. I'm only sorry I was such an idiot.

"Hmm?" Buffy comes back to this world, "Oh. Right. Don't worry about it, we were…Um. It's fine. Really. Thank you. For last night."

"Yeah, yeah. I mean yesterday," God it was only yesterday, "Yesterday was Hell."

"Yes. And thus, drunken mistakeyness ensued."

That sentence causes an actual visceral reaction, I can feel the word "mistake" slap me in the face. It really shouldn't hurt this much.

"Yeah, just, you know," I stammer, "The rum doing it to us."

Buffy grabs my hand lightly, in a friendly way, like I might've grabbed Willow's back in high school, and arsenic icing on the lead cake, leans her head on my shoulder, "I love you Xander."

I wonder how much one heart can take before it just bursts. Longer here than on the Hellmouth is the only answer that springs to mind.

Fuck it. I pull Buffy close to me, she squeezes her arms around my chest and when she loosens her hold I lean down and kiss her. I kiss her a couple of times with no reaction from her and my hands begin turning to ice when it occurs to me that she might not kiss me back.

But then she does. She does. She wraps her arms around my neck and I push her back against one of the elevator walls just as the bell dings and the doors slide open.

"Wow. You're in for a ride B."

Of course. Who else?


End file.
